


Misanthropic Drunken Marauder

by gradynt



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Drug Mentions, Friendship, Gen, Minor Character Death, Violence, great group of tags there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23459254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gradynt/pseuds/gradynt
Summary: The story of how one desperate marauder ended up the captain of the Unreliable, as opposed to our usual intrepid hero. Things go pretty okay.
Relationships: The Captain & Maximillian DeSoto, The Captain & Parvati Holcomb
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Misanthropic Drunken Marauder

**Author's Note:**

> i got tired of looking at this, so im posting it now. enjoy!

There’s a ship. It’s settled in the grass,metal gleaming so bright it’s almost blinding in the midday sun. The sight of it makes his heart jump for reasons he can’t explain, makes his palms sweaty and his mouth dry.

A _ship_.

It’s familiar somehow,right on the edge of recollection like so much else. His memory’s shot, though. Brain might as well have a bunch of holes in it; he’s no good at thinking, or speaking, or anything that’s not doing. A man of action. That’s what he is, he knows that much, even if that’s _all_ he knows, and it’s not enough but it’ll have to do.

The others—other marauders, because the what he is, _who_ he is—are crouched, hidden among the rocks and tall grass some ways behind him, curiosity not yet overriding their innate wariness. They mumble things to one another, simple words to convey simple concepts. They want the ship, same as him, and that makes him angry, somehow. It’s his ship, or it should be. His fist clenches without his permission.

Maybe he’ll do something about it.

—

They don’t expect a thing, caught up in their own chatter. It’s as simple as sneaking up behind, just three shots, _bam bam bam_ , and they fall to the ground, corpses. Now for those yellow armored folks—

There’s a sound like tearing metal and a _boom_ , the loudest thing he’s ever heard, and ground shakes beneath him, quivering like something live and unwell.Smoke rises in plumes from some far-off place in the distance: a crash of some sort.

The guards standing a ways away from the ship are caught, ironically, off guard, eyes darting this way and that, caught up in indecision. Do they hold their post, or go to investigate?

They don’t even notice the threat that darts past them, opening up the belly of the ship and hiding inside.

—

The ship talks. Calls him Alex Hawthorne. He just nods; it’s as good a name as any. Probably. The vowels and consonants are slurred on his tongue, his mouth grappling with the unfamiliar words in such a way that it’s more _Alix Awsorn_ , but that’s okay. Just makes it his.

The ship needs something. A power regulator. Alix has no idea what that is, but it sounds important, like the words hold some special weight when he says them. The ship asks him to get it for her, says if he does then she can get them up in the air and off this sorry excuse for a planet.

It’s never been a possibility before. Alix has never been imaginative (he thinks, as far as he knows), has never had the luxury of time with which to daydream and wonder about things, so the idea of somewhere else has never crossed his mind. This, though, sparks something within him, ignites some desperate need to tear off into the sky, shooting past the atmosphere into the inky black expanse of space, and never look back. It’s indescribable, what he’s feeling. It’s new and raw—it’s hope. That things can get better, that he can be something more, that there’s a life beyond surviving for the next meager scrap of petty freedom he can get his hands on. It’s raw and bloody and so, so sweet. Alix doesn’t know if he’s ever wanted anything before, not if this is what wanting feels like.

He tells the ship he’ll help, because doing anything else seems impossible.

—

Alix makes sure to exchange the clotheshe’s wearing for one of the safer options the ship has to offer: a simple high-collared shirt and slacks. He’s always stayed away from the big Moon Town. The guards tend to shoot at him if they spot him—and he’s killed a fair few of them himself, he thinks, or at least helped—but maybe now they won’t. The clothes make the man. These clothes are right, so now Alix is right. So long as you don’t look at him too hard, at least.

When he walks up to the town gates, Alix’s face is still covered—because he’d feel naked and wrong if it wasn’t—but the Moon Guards let him in anyway. Maybe it’s because of the big gun he carries at his hip, something he salvaged from the ship and better quality than anything he’s ever laid his eyes on (he thinks).

There were a lot of things on the ship. Remnants of a dead man’s life. It felt too personal to rifle through them, more personal than rifling through the pockets of a corpse. The dead should be left to rest. Lots of adreno, though, which is good. If there wasn’t any Alix doesn’t know if even the new clothes could’ve covered up the stench of marauder that lingers on him.

—

The townspeople seem to notice that something’s off about him, but they can’t quite tell what. They just keep their distance. He just appreciates the simple fact that no one’s pulled a gun on him.

Even though he doesn’t ask anyone for directions, Alix finds the town headquarters pretty easily. It’s the biggest building around, so that must be where they keep their leader. Bigger is better. Normal people and marauders aren’t so different. Don’t tell the normal people that,though.

—

The ringleader is named Tobson. He sits straight-backed behind a big oak desk, reprimanding a woman who’s probably his subordinate, yelling with his tone of voice more than his volume. The haughty impatience of it rankles, even if Alix can’t make hide nor hair of what they’re talking about. Something mechanical. Things change, though, when Tobson notices Alix’s presence; it’s like a switch is flipped.

His voice goes from sandpaper rubbing raw against Alix’s skin to something sweet and genial, in a calculated way. His face, too, becomes amicable, like Tobson took out a brush and painted over his features with a manufactured sense of careful optimism. It makes the hairs on the back of Alix’s neck stand on end.

Part of him wants to hurl himself out of one of those big fat windows at the back of the office. He doesn’t trust Tobson as far as he can throw him, and there’s a reason why Alix relies so heavily on his guns: he’s scrawny as hell. But he needs to know what a power converter is, and where to get one beyond that. It’s doubtful any of the townsfolk on the ground level would be willing to give him the time of day, much less an answer, if they even knew what he was talking about.

Tobson just keeps going on, though. Saying a whole lot of words that don’t have a lick of substance to them. Alix’s hands itch to pull at his hair, even trapped as it is behind his helmet, but he waits. He can be patient; running ambushes on unsuspecting passerby is long, quiet work, and Alix has a lot of experience with it.

Effectively, he zones out.

When Alix feels like he’s properly in his body again, he’s outside. Plus he’s got some directions to a power converter and a new companion: Parvati, the one Tobson was yelling at.

She’s pretty meek, it seems, but that’s okay. He’s had worse people watching his back—like that one guy who was actively trying to kill him. Took Alix a while to catch onto that. There was a reason for the grudge, and a damn good one too, Alix can remember thinking at the time, but he’s forgotten it now. He mentions it to Parvati, tries to strike up some sort of friendly rapport, but she just makes an uncomfortable sort of face and retreats further in on herself.

Probably a boring story. He’ll try again later, if he feels up to it. Communication is key, and all that.

—

It takes a while, but in between the killing together and the long quiet stretches of open road, Alix finds he likes Parvati. She doesn’t ask him why he’s got his face covered up, or why he has such a hard time speaking. Looked at him funny at first, but that’s fair; all of the folks in Moon Town—or rather, Edgewater, apparently—did that. Didn’t make one single comment about his everything, though, which earns her some points.

She’s smart too, when she finds the courage to speak up about it. Offers to take a look at his ship for him, free of charge. Alix would usually suspect ulterior motives, or some kind of deception, but Parvati doesn’t seem like the type who would take well to lying. She does have a hard time staring at the visor on the faceplate of Alix’s helmet when she talks to him, but that seems to be more just a part of her personality than some kind of tell.

So when Parvati says they should talk to the Vicar, ask him for guidance, Alix listens. She seems to know what she’s talking about most of the time, so why not? He ends up regretting that pretty quickly.

The Vicar stinks of plastic, like Tobson. The two of them wear the same fake smile, though the Vicar has more cracks in his. Tobson’s whole deal seems to be about control, though, and it feels to Alix like the Vicar is just hiding something. Alix doesn’t know which is worse.

When Alix presses him about it, because there aren’t any well-armed guards around to make him think twice, the Vicar shrugs it off, changes the subject. It’s a bit heavy-handed, but Alix gets the message. “Back off,” and all that. And Alix will, but dodging the question sure as hell isn’t going to get the Vicar his book any faster, that’s for sure.

—

They do end up getting that book, eventually, after a few pit stops. Alix just wanted to check out the community center, the refugee commune across the way, that sort of thing. Wasn’t stalling, honest.

That’s what he tells Parvati, at least. She sees through that pretty easily, but doesn’t kick up a fuss, even though Alix is probably disrespecting her town’s precious Vicar. Alix wonders how devoted to Edgewater Parvati really is.

Anyway, getting the book’s not hard. There’s just some wild canids to kill and rough terrain to navigate, plus a few marauders who try to take their heads off. Standard fare. Alix doesn’t know why the Vicar didn’t just get it himself. Having big walls has made Edgewater folks soft.

Parvati skims through the book on the walk back, face pinched like it’s a puzzle she’s trying to figure out. Alix leaves her to it. He couldn’t give a shit about the book. And why should he? He can’t read. Maybe he could at one point, and it just fell out through the holes in his brain, decimated by the marauder lifestyle—but maybe not. Maybe he just never learned. Reading’s for chumps, anyway.

Or, well—so, Alix knows his letters, can sing the little song, but he just doesn’t know how to piece them together. So maybe he was a chump, at one point, but he’s not anymore. Probably all the better for it, too.

Alix’s thoughts swim in unproductive circles until a group of marauders jumps up from behind a big rock and just starts shooting, and then he doesn’t have time to think anymore. He likes it better that way.

—

Parvati’s not so bad at fighting. Mostly. Her problem is that she hesitates; she doesn’t want to kill anyone. That’s the sort of thing that gets you killed out in the real world, cause there’s no cushy walls to hide behind.

Alix likes Parvati. Sometimes she smiles at him. Alix cant remember the last time he had a smile directed at him that wasn’t adreno-fueled and spattered in blood. It’s a nice change of pace.

So, Alix tries to give her pointers where he can. A “widen your stance” here, a “hold your hammer like this” there, that sort of thing. And he’s helping, yeah, but...his motivations are pretty selfish. Cause if Parvati died, it’d take a hell of a lot of adreno to numb Alix to it, and he can’t afford to just use up his stock like that.

—

It’s a pretty simple series of events: they get back to Edgewater, they head to the church, they give the book to the Vicar, he opens it, and the Vicar gets pissed.

It’s that end part Alix is hung up on.

Max—because this is Maximillian DeSoto, not the pious persona he wears to appease the citizens of Edgewater—is pissed. He’s cursing, pacing, hands clenched down at his sides in fists so tight his knuckles turn white. The veneer hasn’t just fallen off, it’s been ripped apart, and Max is stepping on the pieces of it.

He starts talking about French, spits it like it’s a curse word, _who fucking reads French?_

(Alix does. It‘s his first language. He doesn’t remember that “French” is what it’s called.)

When Parvati tries asking if Max is alright, can she do anything to help, he only gets angrier, like her concern is just fuel in the fire.

But, Max isn’t exactly dangerous. Maybe in a general sense, sure, but right now his arms are staying ramrod straight at his sides, twitching with aborted movement. He’s not about to lash out, not unless further provoked. But...maybe some sense can be knocked into him.

“Vicar.” This word isn’t so hard for Alix to say: it rhymes with liquor.

Max turns to face him, eyebrows drawn tight over his forehead and with a frown that could beat the meanest of marauders’. There’s this wild look in his eyes, rage and frustration and sadness slapped haphazardly together, ripping apart at the seams. He looks like he’s aching for an excuse to do something, anything, to just get it all out and away and not trapped in his brain. Alix is willing to give him just that.

(Plus, even though Alix may not be able to remember much, something tells him he’s always wanted to punch a priest.)

Alix pulls back his fist, and slams it square into Max’s nose.

The resulting spray of blood is pretty damn satisfying.

Max stumbles, uses the back of his hand to wipe away at the blood that’s pouring in rivulets down his face, then wipes it on the clean blue silk of his vestments. His eyes are cold and hard, missing any of the confusion that was clouding them earlier, at least for now.

Alix has about a second to feel proud of a job well done before he’s tackled to the ground.

A fist connects with the visor of his shitty, marauder-made helmet and he hears something in his nose crunch. The taste of blood at the back of his throat hits him almost as hard as the punch.

—

Max ends up joining Alix and Parvati’s motley crew.

It happens pretty suddenly. Sometime after Parvati stopped screaming, and Max’s nose had stopped bleeding quite so much, and Alix’s face went all purple and swollen beneath his helmet, Alix decided he liked Max.

Max isn’t nice like Parvati is, and even though he likes to throw around big words he’s not smart in the same way, either. But now that he’s less unfeeling-yet-friendly robot, Max is pretty fun. Reminds Alix of some of the marauders he used to run with, especially that right hook. When he doesn’t have to worry about being nice to people, Max can be funny too, even if a lot of what he says goes over Alix’s head.

And so, when Max practically demands that Alix take him to some junk-heap planet where the people speak fucking French, Alix can’t think of a good reason to say no.

Max seems taken aback by that, like he’d been ready to fight for it—and Parvati is shocked too, because weren’t you two just beating each other up?—but he ends up coming along for the ride.

Alix...is pretty sure he’s made some friends. Parvati had to explain the concept to him (another one of those things he forgot), but it sounds nice. He’s got at least two friends now, three of you count the ship.

As the new crew of the Unreliable ambles over to the power plant, ready to doom Edgewater or the refugees who fled it, or maybe (read: probably) both, Alix thinks it’s not impossible that he might make some more.

The galaxy is a big place; there’s bound to be more people who don’t mind the way he won’t take off his helmet, not even when his nose is gushing blood, or how he always manages to fumble his words. And even more than he wanted the ship, more than he wanted the chance to just exist in the wide open void of space and be unequivocally free—Alix wants that.

**Author's Note:**

> i haven’t finished the game, so if there’s any inconsistencies with lore, that’s why. thanks for reading! i hope you liked it :]


End file.
